Allah No Moon-God (Exposing the Christian and Afrocentrist Myth)

By Wesley Muhammad, PhD. © 2012 Wesley Muhammad

(Excerpt from Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam)

It has become popular in Christian polemical literature as well as some Afrocentric scholarship and discourse to claim that the deity ʾAlmaqah or ʾAlah Muqah of ancient South Arabia, and therefore the Allah of Islam, was a moon-deity and therefore an illegitimate 'pagan god.'[1] Such claims are based on a misrepresentation of the data, a fact that more sober Christian missionary writers have even pointed out:

“It has been claimed that Almaqah (i.e. Alah Muqah) was a moon god, but there is no solid evidence for this, and scholars now think Almaqah was a sun god…there is no clear evidence that moon-worship was prominent among the Arabs in any way or that the crescent was used as the symbol of a moon god, and Allah certainly was not the moon-god’s name…The crescent had been a symbol used in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and was used on the flag of the Byzantine Empire, which proclaimed itself to be Christian…But when the Turks conquered Constantinople and the rest of the Middle East in the 15th century, they kept the Byzantine symbol of empire. In fact, they affixed crescent symbols atop public buildings throughout their empire as a symbol of their rule…Once the crescent no longer represented Turkish imperial rule in its former colonies, it was reinterpreted as a symbol of Islam, which is it’s modern significance. So the crescent symbol has not been passed down through Islam from a supposed ancient Arabian moon religion but is a symbol imposed by Ottoman Turks for political reasons.”[2]

While it is true that it was at one time the going scholarly opinion that ʾAlmaqah was a moon- god,[3] more recent scholarship has abandoned this view because it was based on an incorrect pretense. The trend, going back to Ditlef Nielsen in the early 20th century,[4] to reduce all of early Arabian religion to a triad of nature deities (Venus, moon, sun) has now been rightly rejected as being oversimplifying and unsupported by current data.[5] Regarding ʾAlmaqah or ʾAlah Muqah, Arabist and historian Alfred F. L. Beeston confirms that “there is nothing to indicate lunar qualities.”[6] Frankfort scholar Werner Daum, in his important work Ursemitische Religion agrees:

 “According to popular opinion, 'Almaqah is a moon-god. For this opinion, derived from Mesopotamian parallels, there is no South Arabian proof.”[7]

Bill Glanzman, a professor at the University of Calgary, Canada, and American Foundation for the Study of Man field director during the last four years of work at the Awwām or so-called 'Moon Temple' of ancient Arabia rightly rejects this designation. International journalist Joël Donnet reports:

“Almaqah was the main god of the Sabeans¼Associated with fertility, agriculture and irrigation, it was first represented by a bull, and possibly by an ibex. It was also often associated with a moon crescent, which led numerous archaeologists - including Abdu Ghaleb and Dr. Yusuf Abdullah, the president of the General Organization of Antiquities, Museums and Houses of Manuscripts- to call it the Moon-God, and therefore to name Mahram Bilqis the Moon Temple. But Bill Glanzman disagrees with this vision, as he considers the moon as only one symbol of Almaqah, and certainly not the most important one, according to the numerous inscriptions from the site recovered during the 1950s and the last four years of the AFSM's fieldwork: ‘So far, the moon isn't even mentioned in the texts, and we have found only a few examples of Almaqah's crescent moon in artwork. We very commonly find the bull (thawran) associated with Almaqah in the inscriptions (emphasis mine-WM).”[8]

The nature of the Sabaean deity ʾAlah Muqah was studied in great detail by J. Pirenne[9] and G. Garbini[10] in the 1970s. They demonstrated that the motifs associated with this deity - the bull, the vine, and also the lion's skin on a human statue - are solar rather than lunar attributes. The Bull in fact was associated first with the sun-god, in Mesopotamia and Egypt,[11] only later being conscripted into the service of the moon-deities in third millennium BCE Mesopotamia.[12] There is thus a growing consensus among scholars that this South Arabian deity was rather a sun-god: “Almaqah was a masculine sun-god,” affirms Jean-François Breton, scholar with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.[13] So too Jacques Ryckmans:

“Until recently Almaqah was considered to be a moon god, under the influence of a now generally rejected conception of a South Arabian pantheon consisting of an exclusive triad: Father Moon, Mother Sun¼and Son Venus. Recent studies underline that the symbols of the bull's head and the vine motif that are associated with him are solar and Dionysiac attributes and are more consistent with a sun god, a male consort of the sun goddess.”[14]

That the moon was only one of ʾAlah Muqah's symbols is a fact  Christian polemicists overlook. For example, Joël Nathan, in his tome Moon-o-theism: Religion of a War and Moon God Prophet, quotes the following statement from Wendell Phillip regarding the Awwām Temple that he excavated:

"Near the top of the delicate stone shaft is a beautifully covered circular sun with a crescent moon".

From Ancient Bar'an Temple of Alah Maqah, near Marib, Yemen. Notice the crescent and solar orb.

(2^nd millennium BCE)

When the crescent moon did appear on ʾAlah Muqah's temples it was conjoined with the solar orb, connoting the dual nature of this deity (diurnal=luminous and nocturnal=dark). Yet, Nathan concludes from Phillip and others who point to this solar orb and crescent moon symbol that,

"this suggests that Almaqah and Syn were moon-gods, not sun- gods."[15]

How does a symbol with the sun and moon conjoined indicate a moon-god? Clearly such a conclusion is dogmatic rather than academic, and born no doubt from a desperate desire to make 'Almaqah a moon-deity for polemical purposes. Unfortunately, many Afrocentrist scholars have adopted this Christian polemic that has no critical scholarly foundation today.  

Notes

---

[1] See esp. Robert Morey, The moon-god Allah in the archeology of the Middle East (Newport, PA : Research and Education Foundation, 1994); Yoel Natan, Moon-o-theism: Religion of a War and Moon God Prophet, 2 volumes (Lulu.com, 2006)

[2] Rick Brown, “Who is Allah?” International Journal of Frontier Missions 23 (2006): 79-80.

[3] Even Yusuf Abdullah, the president of the General Organization of Antiquities, Museums and Houses of Manuscripts, Yemen, labeled the Awwām Temple the 'Moon Temple' on account of this old but mistake belief.

[4] Handbuch der altarbischen Altertumskunde I (Copenhagen, 1927) 177-250.

[5] See e.g. Alfred F. L. Beeston "The Religions Of Pre-Islamic Yemen" in J. Chelhod

(Ed.), L'Arabie Du Sud Histoire Et Civilisation Volume I: Le Peuple Yemenite Et Ses Racines (Paris, 1984) 260.

[6] Beeston "The Religions Of Pre-Islamic Yemen," 263.

[7] Daum, Ursemitisch Religion (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1985). 30.

[8] Joël Donnet, "Looking for the Queen of Sheba," http://pagesperso-orange.fr/joel.donnet/News115.htm. Accessed August 15, 2009.

[9] "Notes D'Archéologie Sud-Arabe," Syria, 49 (1972): 193-217.

[10] "Il Dio Sabeo Almaqah," Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, 48 (1973-1974): 15-22.

[11] Conrad, Horn and Sword, 39; Donald B. Redford (ed.), The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 30 s,v. Bull Gods by Dieter Kessler. It was the sun-god - An, Utu, Ra, etc., - who incarnated in the bull.

[12] Dominique Collon, "The Near Eastern Moon God," in Diederik J.W. Meijer (ed.), Natural Phenomena: Their Meaning, Depiction and Description in the Ancient Near East (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1992) 19; Gudrun Colbow, "More Insights into Representations of the Moon God in the Third and Second Millennium B.C.," in I.L. Finkel and M.J. Geller (edd.), Sumerian Gods and their Representations (Cuneiform Monographs 7) (Groningen: STYX Publications, 1997) 25-26; Tallay Ornan, "The Bull and its Two Masters: Moon and Storm Deities in Relation to the Bull in Ancient Near Eastern Art," Israel Exploration Journal 51 (2001): 3-4.

[13] Breton, Arabia Felix, 120. On Almaqah as a sun-god see further Beeston, "Saba'," 664-665; idem, "The Religions Of Pre-Islamic Yemen" in J. Chelhod (Ed.), L'Arabie Du Sud Histoire Et Civilisation (Le Peuple Yemenite Et Ses Racines), 1984, Volume I:263.

[14] Encyclopedia Britannica 2004 s.v. Arabian Religion by Jacques Ryckmans.

[15] Moon-o-Theism, I:342-342.

The African Origin of Islam: An Open Letter to the Africa-Centered Community

“since the Afro-centrists have fought so long to protect the African contribution to the civilization of Egypt…why not protect the total cultural contribution that Africa has made to Arabia?”

Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour

“Africans were involved in Islam’s creation…But, the Moslem Arabs…have been for some time recently teaching a sort of religious history in which the indigenous Africans find themselves omitted from the historical role they played in Islam’s origins. They are also excluded from the highest posts of the administration of Islam in Mecca, which they had traditionally held from the beginning of Islam with the Prophet Mohamet, and Hadzart Bila Ibn Rahab…Islam was no better than Judaism and Christianity, as its modern administrators attempted to eliminate its indigenous African founders from the eyes of the faithful, and the world in general. But history, written history, once more acted in her own way, and mannerism, as it clamoured, once again, for Islam’s indigenous African originators.” Dr.  Yosef Ben-Jochannan.

"the student's obligation was to build upon the previous generation's work, to find what is missing, omitted (intentionally or not), neglected, and flat-out incorrect, so we can make the necessary changes for the following generation.." 

 John Henrick Clarke.

It has been two years now since I launched a campaign to academically demonstrate the African origins of the religio-cultural tradition called Islam. This campaign began with a debate invitation to Bro Walter Williams, author of the book, The Historical Origins of Islam. After accepting the invitation, and then backing out of the debate, I went to Trenton, New Jersey in March 2009 and delivered my first lecture on the subject entitled, “The Origin of Islam and End of Ghetto Scholarship.” Since that day, I have given several public lectures on the subject; I have engaged in three live debates on the subject – with Doctors, Babas, and Captains; I have done blogtalk debates disguised as interviews; I have written two books and numerous articles on the subject.  And the bottom line is this: I and others have demonstrated beyond all shadow of reasonable doubt that Islam IS an African religion: it was created by Africoid peoples in Arabia and spread to the corners of the earth by them. This Islam of Prophet Muhammad and the early Ummah – who were Black Arabs or African-Arabians – was the genetic descendent of the religious tradition of ancient Black Arabia (Kushite Arabia). I have demonstrated that this indigenous ‘African Islam’ was eventually usurped by white converts and made – like everything else – a tool of White Supremacy.  It has been demonstrated that Islam is Africa’s ‘Other Stolen Legacy’. Not a single person has been able to impeach the evidence that has been presented and none have been able to disprove the basic point.  It is time to declare an end to all hostilities. There are no more debates to be had, except with those who have a vested interest in preserving the White Supremacy that has been enthroned within Islam.  

It is in my opinion a very sad state of affairs that the most ferocious opposition to the revelation of these facts have come not from those vested in the maintenance of Islamic White Supremacy, but from members of the Africa-centered/Afrocentrist community, the very community which one would have expected to be the first and most eager receivers of this information. After all, it was the great Cheikh Anta Diop and Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan who laid the base for this demonstration. My book, Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam, simply puts flesh on a skeletal narrative that began with Diop’s, The Cultural Unity of Black Africa and Dr. Ben’s The African Origin of the Major ‘Western’ Religions. This effort to reclaim Arabia and Islam from the prison of White Supremacy is akin to the earlier efforts that resulted in the reclamation of Kemet and Ma’at from that same prison. We in the Africa-centered community enthusiastically received the works of Prof George G.M. James and Prof Martin Bernal who advocated and established the African origin of Greek Philosophy. In as much as we can embrace the fact that Kemet and so-called ‘Greek’ Philosophy are among our ‘stolen legacies’ whose reclamation we celebrate, the fierce resistance to the reclamation of Arabia and its contributions – pre-Aryanized Islam included – as another stolen legacy is somewhat bewildering. It can only be explained as an ideological reaction on the part of those who, for one reason or another, feel they must reject the documented African origins of Islam despite the evidence.

The sometimes ferocious resistance from members of the Africa-centered community – of which I too am a proud member – is truly overkill. It has gotten at times so nigga-ish and clownish that it is embarrassing. Personal assaults and disrespect more often than not are a characteristic feature of this resistance. Admittedly, it is the more youthful and less scholarly ones of the community that exhibit this behavior and give Africa-centered intellectuality a bad look. But unfortunately, the reception by the more established figures of this community has been lukewarm: while some have shown public appreciation of my work; many more have privately done so, while being publically quite as the debate rages on. That is certainly their prerogative and this is only an observation, not a criticism. But the overall resistance to this fact of the African origins of Islam exposes much of the current Africa-centered community as a community that, despite its scholarly pedigree, can fall victim to religious and ideological dogmatism.  The reasons given for the rejection of my thesis are most often so flimsy and contorted that they prove the ideological nature of this rejection. My work on Black Arabia and the African origins of Islam seems to be exorcizing the dogmatic demons that lurked deep in the Africa-centered communal consciousness.  My prayer is that we as an intellectual community can grow from this by looking in the mirror and freeing ourselves from these dogmatic demons that we too often have passed off as ‘revolutionary intellectualism.’

Because the reaction to my work on the African Origin of Islam is so ideological now, I have discontinued engaging the resistance from the Africa-centered community. I will continue to teach and publish on the subject; I will debate with those from the Muslim world who (consciously or subconsciously) have a vested interest in preserving the hegemony of White Supremacy in Islam which I am trying to help dismantle. But I will no longer debate so-called Afrocentrists on this issue. There is something very disturbing about the very idea of two alleged Afrocentrists or Africa-centered Black intellectuals debating whether Islam was originated by Blacks or Whites. That discussion is better had with a Black and a White intellectual. So I will no longer entertain in any way the so-called challenges or debate invitations from ideological Afrocentrists on this subject. All are free to write scholarly critiques of my work, and those critiques that are credible and done with integrity will be addressed in one of my many forthcoming publications on the subject. But I will simply ignore everything and everyone else.  If you come to my Facebook page hoping for an impromptu debate, you will be ignored. If you persist, you will be deleted. And be clear: my past and future decision to ignore you and my refusal to engage you – whoever you may be or have been – is not because I fear you. It is frankly because I do not respect you; not as an intellectual with any integrity.

So I believe that the discussions that have taken place up to this point have their value and have served their purpose. It is now time to move on though. It is at least time for me to move on.

Scholarship means nothing to me. Scholarship with integrity means everything. SMH at those who know not the difference.

Peace to all the Africa-centered scholars with integrity: you are the true intellectual warriors. I pray that one day I can be found worthy to join your ranks.

Wesley Muhammad, PhD.

        

 1/09/12

Dr. Wesley Muhammad

Dr. Wesley Muhammad is regarded by many as a phenomenal young scholar with impressive credentials, who is also passionately committed to playing a role in the healing of the Black Nation.  He received a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from the acclaimed HBCU, Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA), graduating with honors in 1994. In 2003 Dr. Muhammad received a Master’s Degree in Islamic Studies from the prestigious ‘public Ivy’, the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), whence he also received a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies with a focus on Early Theological Development in Islam. Dr. Muhammad’s doctoral work included training in Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, German and French and he conducts research in those languages. Twice as a graduate student Dr. Muhammad’s exceptional research earned him the highly honored, Great Books of Islam Prize, given out by the Center For Middle East and Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan. Dr. Muhammad has been invited to present his research at the University of Chicago, Duke University, Emory University, Michigan State University, Western Kentucky University, Howard University, Cleveland State University ,Morehouse College, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. In September, 2002, Dr. Muhammad was one of a number of scholars selected to present at the First World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies held in Mainz, Germany, where 2000 scholars from over 14 different countries participated. He was asked by members of the organizing committee to chair the panels on Islamic Theology.

Dr. Muhammad’s research has been published or accepted for publication in some of the most respected peer-reviewed journals of his fields: The International Journal of Middle East Studies, The American Journal of the Oriental Society, The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, and The Harvard Theological Review. Dr. Muhammad has recently been asked to contribute to the much anticipated upcoming Encyclopedia of Muhammad, to be published by one of the leading Western publishers in academic and reference publications. Dr. Muhammad has taught courses on Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, African American Religion, and Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan, the University of Toledo, and Michigan State University.

Dr. Muhammad’s scholarship is both deconstructionist as well as constructionist. Not only has he courageously and convincingly deconstructed important aspects of the Orthodox Islamic historical-theological tradition, but he is also helping to construct a totally new historical paradigm for Islam.

But Dr. Muhammad’s credentials in the ‘Movement’ are equally impressive. As a fiery Five Percenter at Morehouse College, Dr. Muhammad or ‘True Islam’ as he was then and is stilled called, lit up the Atlanta University Center. Between the years 1992-1994, Dr. Muhammad, as 'Student Minister Wesley X,' was appointed by the Southern Regional Minister of the Nation of Islam to represent the local and regional Mosque among the colleges and universities around the Atlanta Metro area. Dr. Muhammad was president of the first Nation of Islam Students Association at Morehouse College in 1993-4, and was featured in British Broadcasting Communications documentary, 'The Morehouse Men,' which aired nationally in 1995. Dr. Muhammad is the author of several works, including: The Book of God: An Encyclopedia of Proof that the Black Man is God; Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam and Take Another Look: The Qur’an, The Sunna, and the Islam of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

On January 10, 2010 the United Muslim Alliance and the New Black Panther Party (NY) presented Dr. Muhammad with The Dr. Khalid Abdul Muhammad Sayful Islam Award and on January 30, 2010 Student Minister Rodeney Muhammad and the Believers of Muhammad Mosque #12 (Philly) and the Delaware Valley Region presented him with the "Defender of the Ummah" Award.

      

The Master Teachers Speak: Dr Ben and Dr Diop on the African Origins of Islam

One of the most overlooked works of our great Master Teachers is Dr Yusef Ben Yochannan’s The African Origin of the Major ‘Western’ Religions, first published in 1970 and reprinted by Black Classic Press in 1991. Much new data and information has come to light since Dr Ben wrote this great work in 1970 which either invalidates or renders suspect a number of his conclusions. For example, Dr. Ben’s suggestion that the prophet Muhammad converted the female divinity Allat into his male divinity Allah is contradicted by the linguistic and the epigraphic evidence. Nevertheless, The African Origin of the Major ‘Western’ Religions is still a classic and a trail blazer, far ahead of its time. The work I do is in many ways an attempt to continue what Dr Ben started in this important work.

In his chapter on the African origins of the religion of Islam, Dr Ben makes the following remarks:

“The fact that within the last three to four hundred years the role of the indigenous Africans in these major religions has been carefully and purposefully denied, suppressed, and in most cases, omitted, will not stop the ‘truth’ about their indigenous African origins from coming to the surface.”

“none of the Gods, prophets, or founders of any of the three religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - …was indigenous to Europe (a Caucasian, or White man.)…Judaism and Islam, both, had indigenous Africans in the leadership roles from the first day of their recorded origin. In Judaism, after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it was Moses and his fellow indigenous African-Jews of Egypt and those in Kush…Islam had Mohamet – whose grandfather was of African origin, and his closest advisor and co-founder of Islam – an African from Ethiopia …named Hadzrat Bilal ibn Rahbab.”  

“Africans were involved in Islam’s creation…But, the Moslem Arabs…have been for some time recently teaching a sort of religious history in which the indigenous Africans find themselves omitted from the historical role they played in Islam’s origins. They are also excluded from the highest posts of the administration of Islam in Mecca, which they had traditionally held from the beginning of Islam with the Prophet Mohamet, and Hadzart Bila Ibn Rahab…Islam was no better than Judaism and Christianity, as its modern administrators attempted to eliminate its indigenous African founders from the eyes of the faithful, and the world in general. But history, written history, once more acted in her own way, and mannerism, as it clamoured, once again, for Islam’s indigenous African originators.”   

Dr. Ben frequently stresses “Islam(‘s)…Arabian Peninsula African Origins” and that “Islam(‘s)….foundation…is so intensely African…in structure.” He declares categorically that “Islam, with her God – Allah…cannot escape its indigenous African origin” because “it was the Africans, and others of African ancestry, who were most instrumental in Islam’s creation.”  

My book, Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam (2009) sought to continue this line of research opened up by Dr. Ben and to flesh it out by adding the weight of new ethnographic data as well as the evidence found in the Classical Arabic sources.

The great Dr Cheikh Anta Diop (d. 1986), historian, scientist, scholar par excellence, also had some very interesting things to say about Islam and its relation to African religious tradition. Now Diop's main source for his ethno-history of Arabia was the 1869 work by the French Assyriologist Francois Lenormant (d. 1883) entitled Manuel d'histoire ancienne de l'Orient jusqu'aux guerres médiques. While Lenormant was an accomplished historian and his book even today might still be profitably consulted, the wealth of new information, not the least of which derives from Arabic sources, means that many of Lenormant's theories are severely outdated. Thus, relying on this work as he did means that even the great Dr. Diop's ethno-historical reconstruction of Arabia, Arabs, and Semites needs significant updating and modification today. For example, Lenormant’s theories contributed to Diop’s conclusion that “Anthropologically and culturally speaking, the Semitic world was born during protohistoric times from the mixture of white-skinned and black-skinned people in Western Asia (The African Origin of Civilization, Myth or Reality [1974], xv).” In fact, it is clear today from the linguistic, archaeological, and anthropological evidence that the Semitic world was originally a purely African world, and remained so for quite awhile. Whites did “convert” to Semitism much later, but they added nothing to the original formation and spread of the Semitic world. Nevertheless, Diop’s thoughts on Islam and Arabia are worth quoting, because they ultimately agree with the current data, at least in their broad outlines.

Dr Diop discusses Islam in the context of his Two Cradle Theory.  The theory postulates that the severe climate and environment of Europe and Asia, i.e. the Northern Zone or Cradle, caused biological and cultural changes in the original human type resulting in the loss of pigmentation biologically and the development of an individualistic, xenophobic, aggressive, nomadic culture among the white northerners, in contrast to the cooperative, xenophillic, peaceful, sedentary culture among the African peoples who still inhabited the more benign climatic and environmental Southern Zone or Cradle. These distinct climatic and environmental conditions of the two zones/cradles produced two distinct types of civilizations, epitomized by Greece and Egypt.

Southern Cradle-Egyptian Model

                

                 1. Abundance of vital resources.

                 2. Sedentary-agricultural.

                 3. Gentle, idealistic, peaceful nature with a spirit of justice.                        

                 4. Matriarchal family.

                 5. Emancipation of women in domestic life.

                 6. Territorial state.

                 7. Xenophilia.

                 8. Cosmopolitanism.

                 9. Social collectivism.

                 10. Material solidarity of right for individual which makes moral or material misery unknown.

                 11. Idea of peace, justice, goodness and optimism.                 

                 12. Literature emphasizes novel tales, fables and comedy.

Northern Cradle-Greek Model

                 1. Bareness of resources.

                 2. Nomadic-hunting (piracy)

                 3. Ferocious, warlike nature with spirit of survival.

                 4. Patriarchal family.

                 5. Debasement / enslavement of women.

                 6. City state (fort)

                 7. Xenophobia.

                 8. Parochialism.

                 9. Individualism.

                 10. Moral solitude.

                 11. Disgust for existence, pessimism.

                 12. Literature favors tragedy.

    

In addition to these two polar zones, North and South, Diop acknowledged a third zone, a “zone of confluence” or meeting place of Northern and Southern zones. According to Diop Western Asia, especially Arabia, is the true zone of confluence in which the two polar cultures met, interacted, and mingled. While Diop’s theory seems a bit too reductionist, it does have heuristic value. It is in this context that Diop discusses Islam.

“Arabia was at first peopled by Southern (i.e. African/Cushite) peoples who were later submerged by those (whites/Jectanides) coming from the North and the East…The Jectanides ‘who were still, at the moment of their arrival in an almost barbaric state,’ only introduced (to Arabia)…the system of pastoral tribes characteristic of the Northern Cradle and the institution of military feudalism…The religion (of Arabia) was (on the other hand) of Cushite origin…it was to remain unchanged until the coming of Islam…The god Il (i.e. Ala) was the object of a national cult; he bore the following names: Lord of the Heavens, Merciful, etc…The only triad which was worshiped was that of Venus-Sun-Moon…prayers were offered to the sun at different moments in its course. There was neither idolatry nor images nor priesthood. Invocations were made directly to the seven planets. The thirty days fast (as in Islam) already existed – as in Egypt – and seven times a day prayers were offered with faces turned to the north. These prayers are allied to those of the Mohammedan religion. All the elements necessary to the birth of Islam were thus present more than a thousand years before the birth of Mohammed, and Islam appears as a ‘purging’ of (Babylonian) Sabaism by ‘God’s messenger.’ This superimposition of the two influences, Northern and Southern, on the Arabian peninsula, occurred in every sphere…

“It is remarkable that many Arabic religious terms can be obtained by a simple combination of the three Egyptian ontological notions, Ba, Ra, Ka. As examples we can cite:

KABAR (a) = The action of raising the arms in prayer

RAKA         = The action of placing the forehead on the ground

KAABA      = The holy place of Mecca

It is sufficiently obvious from what has just been said that Arabia was first inhabited by Southern peoples, sedentary and agricultural, who prepared the way for the nomads in different fields of progress. In early society, woman (sic) enjoyed all the advantages pertaining to the matriarchal régime; this is proved by the fact a woman could be a queen…The triumph of the Northern nomadic element was accompanied by the dominance of the patriarchal system, tinged with apparent anomalies, survivals of the previous régime. Thus, the dowry was given to the woman, as in the matriarchal régime. This fact can only be explained by invoking the influence of Sabaism on Islamic society (The Cultural Unity of Black Africa [1963/1989], 84, 87-89).”

According to Diop, then, Arabia was originally a Southern land and its indigenous people a Southern people, i.e. Cushites. These Cushites originated the religion of Arabia, which worshiped Il/Ala, somehow through the agency of the astral triad Venus-Sun-Moon. In this Arabian Cushitic religion that is related to the Babylonian Cushitic religion, the seven planets were honored, though there were no idols, images, or priesthood. Prayers were offered seven times daily and according to the sun’s position in the sky, similar to the Muslim prayers; and there was a 30-day fast, not unlike the Muslim Ramadan or the ancient Egyptian fast. This all suggests to Diop that the Islam of Muhammad – who was himself “mixed with Negro blood” -  was continuous with the ancient Arabian Cushite religion, only ‘purified’ of some ‘Sabaen (?)’ elements. Islam will also, however, like everything else in Arabia, be negatively impacted by the invader Northern Cradle culture, e.g. the eventual dominance of the patriarchal régime. Nevertheless, that Islam is continuous with the ancient Cushite religious tradition is indicated by terminology for some of its central religious expressions (kabar, raka, kaaba); many of these terms seem to be combinations of cognate ancient Egyptian religious terms. These central religious terms, along with the Islamic deity Allah, the 30-day fast (Ramadan), the multiple prayers whose occurrence was determined by the position of the sun (salat); the Islamic rejection of idols, images and priesthood, all are “survivals” from the ancient Cushitic religion of Arabia.     

These positions of two of our Master Teachers are significant and most often overlooked. However, while the positions of both scholars need some refinement and elaboration, we overlook them at grave cost to a full and proper understanding of Arabia’s and Islam’s place among Africa’s contributions to the world, and we thus deprive Africa of yet another of her ‘stolen legacies.’ Both Dr. Ben and Dr Diop seem to agree that Islam has, as Dr Ben said, “indigenous African origins.” Both agree, also, that whites took over the religion and negatively impacted it, partly by removing the original African creators from positions of authority and influence. In Dr. Diop’s terms, Islam is a ‘purified’ survival from the pre-Jectanide, Cushite religion that was however impacted by those invading and usurping Northern Jectanides (whites). Islamic society as Diop knew it in his day is ultimately an amalgam of indigenous Southern and invading Northern Cradle cultures.       

The African Islam Debates

 

1.] Is Islam an African or White Arab Religion? The Debate with Natural Tahuti.

November 7, 2009 at Harriet Tubman School in Harlem New York

http://vimeo.com/34041190

2.] Is Islam an African Religion? The Dr. Ray Hagins Debate

"The Discussion That Rocked Harlem". April 24, 2010 at Harriet Tubman School in Harlem New York.

http://vimeo.com/34085736

3.] Ma’at and Islam: Two Distinct African Spiritual Traditions, Or Not? Discussion with Bro Mukasa Afrika Ma’at

December 10, 2011, Baltimore MD.

Part I: Dr. Wesley Muhammad’s Opening

http://vimeo.com/33673883

Part II: Bro Mukasa Afrika Ma’at’s Opening

http://vimeo.com/33687494

Part III: Dr. Wesley Muhammad’s Rebuttal

http://vimeo.com/33697486

Part IV: Bro Mukasa Afrika Ma’at’s Rebuttal

http://vimeo.com/33712078

Part V: Q & A

http://vimeo.com/33741367

Al-Ghazzali and the Aryanization of Islam

(Excerpt from my new book, Take Another Look: The Qur'an, The Sunna, and the Islam of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad)

2. Al-Ghazzālī: Proof of (What) Islam?

THEM’s claim that God is a man is certainly at odds with the normative or orthodox Islamic view, a view well articulated by the Persian scholar Muhammad Abu Hāmid al-Ghazzālī (d. 1128), called Hujjat al-Islām or the ‘Proof of Islam,’ in his Kitāb al-qawa’id al-‘aqā’id, 1.3:

“He [God Most High] is not a body with a form, or a limited, quantitative substance…He does not resemble anything that exists, nor does anything that exists resemble Him. There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him, nor is He like unto anything. He is not delimited by magnitude, contained by places, encompassed by directions, or bounded by heavens or earth.

He sees without a pupil or eyelids. He hears without ear canals or ears. Likewise, He knows without a heart, He seizes without an extremity, and He creates without an implement-because His attributes do not resemble the attributes of the creation. Likewise, His essence does not resemble the essences of the creation.”

Al-Ghazzālī’s influence on later (and current) orthodox theology is unparalleled. He is called ‘The Proof of Islam,’ Hujjat al-Islām in part because his articulation and rationalization of a formless, bodiless, immaterial God is the articulation and rationalization of Islamic orthodoxy today. Thus, the theological interpretation of the scriptures of Islam against which THEM is often judged and found guilty of shirkand kufr (unbelief), and the interpretation which he himself rejected, is an interpretation substantively influenced and informed by al-Ghazzālī. And while THEM has been accused of reading his anthropomorphist doctrine into the Qur"ān where it (presumably) does not naturally exists, it is demonstrable that al-Ghazzālī read his anti-anthropomorphist doctrine of incorporeality into the Qur"ān and Sunna where, by his own admission, this doctrine is completely absent. In his important treatise,Iljām al-awām an ilm il-kalām (“Bridling the Common Folk Away From the Science of Theological Speculation”) the Persian Proof of Islam confesses that, even though the Prophet Muhammad was in no way lax in terms of his desire to propagate the full truth as he knew it; though he had no intellectual deficiency that would have limited the truth as far as he possessed it; though he lacked nothing in terms of linguistic and semantic facility that would have precluded his clear articulation of the truth as he knew it; yet the Prophet never affirmed this incorporeal god to whom he (al-Ghazzālī) and the speculative theologians were calling the people. Why didn’t the Prophet, fully capable of affirming the truth of this incorporeal deity, actually do so? Because, al-Ghazzālī claims, the Prophet was commanded by God to speak “only at the level of the people's intellects.” Because the people to whom the Prophet was sent were not intellectually capable of grasping this ‘truth’ and therefore would have rejected this god as an impossibility and rejected Islam, the Prophet withheld the truth of the incorporeal god (see below)! It is not necessary here to deconstruct al-Ghazzālī’s elitist and condescending presumptions regarding the masses of the Muslim followers of the Prophet. It is enough to emphasize that al-Ghazzālī here clearly admits that the ‘Islam’ of which he is said to be the ‘Proof’ is NOT the Islam that the Holy Prophet articulated!

Relevant page from al- Ghazzālī’s Iljām al-awām an ilm il-kalām

Al-Ghazzālī thus had to read his incorporeal god into the Qur"ān and Sunna by applying allegorical exegesis (ta’wil) to the passages that would otherwise seem to affirm or support an anthropomorphist reading. His ta’wil was informed by Hellenistic logic, in particular Aristotelian Logical Analogies. It is therefore no surprise that his incorporeal god is but the god of the Greek philosophers in a turban.

3. Whose Orthodoxy? The Black Sheep and the White Sheep

To understand the full significance of this ‘Persian Proof of Islam’ and his revision of the Prophetic legacy, one must see him in the light of a prophetic report of Muhammad.

“Zayd b. Aslam related that the Prophet (s) saw a vision and told his companions about it. He said: “I saw a group of black sheep and a group of white sheep then mixed with them [until the white sheep became so numerous that the black sheep could no longer be seen in the herd of sheep.] I[1] interpreted it to mean that [the black sheep are the Arabs. They will accept Islam and become many. As for the white sheep, they are the non-Arabs (i.e. Persians, Turks, Byzantines, ect.)] They will enter Islam and then share with you your wealth and your genealogy [and become so numerous that the Arabs will not be noticed amongst them.]” The Companions became surprised by what he (s) said. Then one said, “The non-Arab Persians will enter our land, O’ Messenger of Allah?!” The Prophet (s) then said, “Yes. By He Who Has my soul in His Hand, if the religion was hanging on the distant star, men from the non-Arab Persians would reach it and the luckiest of them would be the people of Faris.”[2]

The original recipients of the Prophet’s message, the Arabs or ‘black sheep,’ are here said to have been (or in the future to be) engulfed by later non-Arab converts to Islam or ‘white sheep’ who will not only ‘share’ their wealth (e.g. the riches generated from Middle Eastern oil), but also share or, rather, ‘appropriate’ Arab genealogy. In other words, non-Arab converts to Islam will assume Arab identity to such an extent that the actual ethnicity of the original Arabs will be forgotten. The fact that the original Arabs and Arab followers of Muhammad were black is well-documented.[3] So too is the fact that these original Muslims have been lost within an influx of non-Arab converts to Islam.[4] The face of Islam went from black to white.

It is not to be doubted that the ‘black sheep’ metaphor in this report alludes to the black ethnicity of the original Arabs. This is confirmed by numerous reports. See especially the example of Muhammad b. ‘Abd Allāh (d. 762), known also as al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (“The Pure Soul”). He was a pure descendent of the Prophet himself through the latter’s daughter Fatimah, wife of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, and in fact “prided himself on being a Qurayshi [Arab] of pure lineage…[with] a pure descent from the Prophet.”[5] This point is clearly evident in a letter he sent to the ‘Abbasid caliph Abu Ja’far al-Mansur (r. 754 – 775), against whom he rebelled in 762. Al-Nafs al-Zakiyya felt Abu Ja’far al-Mansur’s mixed lineage (his mother was a Berber) disqualified him for leadership over the community. He wrote to the caliph:

“You well know that no one has laid claim to this office (the caliphate) who has a lineage, nobility, and status like ours. By the nobility of our fathers, we are not the sons of the accursed, the outcasts, or freedmen…I am at the very center of the Banu Hashim’s lines. My paternity is purest among them, undiluted with non-Arab blood, and no concubines dispute over me.[6]

What did this pure Arab descendent of the Prophet look like? “Muhammad (Al-Nafs al-Zakiyya) is described as tall and strong with very dark skin”.[7]  Indeed, al-Dhahabi describes him as “black-skinned and huge.”[8] But it is al-Tabari’s description that is most informative:

Muhammad (Al-Nafs al-Zakiyya) was black, exceedingly black, jet black (adam shadid al-udma adlam) and huge. He was nicknamed “Tar Face” (al-qari) because of his black complexion (udmatihi), such that Abu Ja’far used to call him “Charcoal Face” (al-muhammam).[9]

Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, a Qurayshi Arab whose pure lineage on both his father’s and his mother’s side put him “at the center” of the genealogical lines of the Banu Hashim, the Prophet’s kinsfolk, was so black he was called ‘Tar face’ and ‘Charcoal face’. He best represents those ‘black sheep’ to whom the message of Islam first came and who disappeared from view once non-Arab groups converted in large numbers.

It is not incidental that the Qur’an emphasizes that it is an Arabic, not a non-Arabic (a’jamiyya) revelation (41:2-3, 44). This suggests that the proper context in which to understand the revelation is a 7th century Arab linguistic and, thus, cultural context. It is the case that the Bedouin Arabs (a’rabi) were seen as the purest representatives of the Arabic Islamic way. Fine points of Islamic law were frequently decided by appeal to Bedouin tradition, and Arabic philologists privileged ‘pure’ desert Bedouin usage over the more cosmopolitan Arabic of the town when ruling on matters of correct Arabic grammar. The pure Arab was the Black Arab, the black sheep of the Prophet’s vision. This was the original recipient community of the message of Islam, and their linguistic-cultural way provided the context in which to properly understand the revelation.  

The Persian al-Ghazzālī best represents the ‘white sheep’ – those non-Arabs who converted to Islam and appropriated the wealth and even identity of the original Muslims, the black sheep or Black Arabs. It is quite telling that al-Ghazzālī would dismiss the original Muslim followers of the Prophet, the black sheep, as too dim-witted to have received the ‘truth’ of the incorporeal god from the Prophet – thus the conspicuous absence of this god from the Prophet’s message. This sentiment no doubt reflects not only a condescending elitism on al-Ghazzālī’s part, but also racism: the latter characterized much Iranian (Persian) Muslim literature in his day.[10] These ‘white sheep’ introduced non-Arab, even non-Islamic elements into Islam, such as an anti-black racism. They also, however, introduced the ‘God of the Philosophers’ and the Hellenized interpretation (ta’wil) of scripture so as to locate that god within Islamic revelation.[11]

Endnotes

[1] Or Abu Bakr with the approval of the angel.

[2] There are several versions of this report here conflated. See e.g. Al-Suyutī, Tārikh al-khulafā (Cairo: D§r al-Fajr lil-Turuth, 1999) 86. 

[3] See Wesley Muhammad, Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam (Atlanta: A-Team Publishing, 2009) Chapters Six and Seven.

[4] Robert Goldston, The Sword of the Prophet: A History of the Arab World From the Time of Mohammed to the Present Day (New York: Dial Press, 1979) 87: “the original Arabs, those lords of the desert who had formed the vanguard of Islam and presided over its golden age…(almost) all had long since become so submerged into the cosmopolitan empire that they were indistinguishable from their neighbors.”

[5] Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “The Nature of Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya’s Mahdiship: A Study of Some Reports in Ißbah§nÊ’s Maq§til,” Hamdard Islamicus 13 (1990): 60-61.

[6] Quoted from al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, Vol. XXVIII: 'Abbasid Authority Affirmed, trans. annot. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985) 167-68.

[7] The Encyclopedia of Islam (New Edition; hereafter EI2) 7:389 s.v. MuÈammad b. #Abd Allāh by F. Buhl.

[8] Al-'Ibar fi khabar man ghabar (Kuwait: Tur§th al-ArabÊ) 4:198. 

[9] Al-Tabari, Ta'rikh al-rusul wa'l-muluk, edd. Michael Jan de Goeje and Lawrence Conrad,Annals of the Apostles and Kings. A Critical Edition Including ‘Arib’s Supplement (Gorgias Press, 2005) 10:203.

[10] Mino Southgate, “The Negative Images of Blacks in Some Medieval Iranian Writings,” Iranian Studies 17 (1984): 3-35

[11] See Wesley Williams, “A Body Unlike Bodies: Transcendent Anthropomorphism in Ancient Semitic Tradition and Early Islam,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 129 (2009) 19-44.